Osborne stopped me being a Wasp
By rights I should have been a Wasp. My dad played for the club and I had a few training sessions with them. But I joined Harlequins instead while I was still in the lower sixth form at school after Collin Osborne spotted me playing a year young for Surrey U16s.
We had a fantastic year group at Quins and four of us graduated from the academy to the first team: myself, George Lowe, Joe Marler and Chris York.
In my second professional year at Harlequins I played for England U20s at the 2010 Junior World Cup in Argentina.While disappointing to lose out to Australia in the semi-final, it was great to experience the passion that the fans had for the game there.
Earlier in the season I’d made my first team debut for Quins – away at Gloucester of all places. My first involvement off the bench was to field a box-kick straight in front of the Shed with James Simpson-Daniel bearing down on me.
Luckily I caught it cleanly but I’m sure I got a few of the customary donkey noises reserved for opposing players during the rest of the game. Sadly, we were on the wrong end of a record 46-6 defeat so it was a terrible baptism of fire but I was hooked and craved more game time.
The following season, however, I did not play a single minute of Premiership rugby. I couldn’t get past Ugo Monye and Gonzalo Camacho but played in the majority of our pool games and scored four tries the year we beat Stade Francais to win the Amlin Challenge Cup. Unfortunately, I broke my thumb and missed the knockout stages and that was me done for the season.
In terms of standout games, our 25-23 semi-final victory over Northampton in 2011-12, the year we won the Premiership, was pretty spe- cial.We won it with a 25-metre maul with time nearly up. Needless to say, I was nowhere near it!
Most of our tries that season came from playing with width, and as a wing it was great to be involved in a side that approached the game that way. Beating Saracens at Wembley was another highlight, because of the venue and the fact that it was very rare for them to lose.
Towards the end of my sixth and final year I hit a real purple patch, scoring six tries in seven games. I’d already announced my signing for Worcester so it was nice to go out on a high. I had the option of staying at Quins but I am quite an ambitious guy and I hankered after a consistent run of games. It is hard to get any momentum when you are in one week and out another.
When I met Dean Ryan he sold me his vision of where he wanted to take Worcester. Obviously he has left now but not before delivering on his promise to turn the club around and build a good group of players. I knew there was a chance that the club would get relegated when I agreed to sign but it was a challenge I wanted to take on.
Unfortunately, rugby-wise it has not gone my way since moving to Worcester. But I love living here and have no plans on moving back to London especially now that my new passion – Wayland’sYard coffee shop – is up and running in the city centre.
Scoring loads of tries during our Championship-winning season was fun – I got four in one game against Yorkshire Carnegie – but at the same time it was frustrating to be playing at that level. Little did I know that the first leg of the semi-final against London Scottish, on May 2, 2015, would be my last game for Worcester due to a recurring quad muscle injury.
I was sent out on loan to Scottish to get some game time in February this year but tore the quad again two minutes into my fourth game against Bristol.
I had an operation and got back into rugby training but wasn’t able to run at more than 90 per cent top speed. In my head I didn’t want to limp along for a season and pick up a pay cheque without contributing so, after talking to family and friends, I made the decision to retire and devote all my energy to the coffee shop side of things.
I’ll have to see if Joe can help promote it like he did with Olly Kohn’s ‘Jolly Hog’ sausage-making business by shaving the name on his head!
-as told to Jon Newcombe